Within- and Between-family Variability for Important Bulb and Plant Traits among Sexually Derived Progenies of Garlic

Abstract

Until recently, there has been no large-scale production of true seeds in garlic (A. sativum L. and A. longicuspis L.). The recent discovery of male fertile garlic accessions stimulated research on the genetics and breeding of garlic. However, there is no information regarding the phenotypic characteristics of garlic populations generated from true seeds. We evaluated the first generation of sexually derived families of garlic for bulb and clove weight, number of cloves per bulb, flower stalk height, number of leaves, plant height, and days required to achieve bulb maturity. Significant variations were observed within and among families for these important traits.